Since I wrote my last two articles on Albo’s referendums many people have asked me for my predictions. To such requests I have answered: “There is one chance in three that the Voice proposal will be carried and two chances in three it will be defeated. Australia will not become a republic.” (The articles in question were both posted last year: “How I’ll vote in Albo’s referendums”, August 11, and “Why I am a monarchist”, September 13).
However, a friend who has proved in the past to be a very good judge of these things has tried to persuade me to adopt his prediction on the Voice. He says it will be carried nationally and in all jurisdictions except Queensland. My reply to him was: “I hope you are right – that is all I can say, but I know referendums always produce higher opinion poll affirmative votes than the ballot papers in ballot boxes do.”
There is one important respect in which I differ from most political pundits. The standard line of political commentators is to start with the proposition that Australia has a poor record when it comes to constitutional reform. I don’t think that, as I now explain.
During my lifetime 26 questions have been put to the Australian people in federal referendums with five approved (1946, 1967 and three in 1977) and 21 rejected. Being a territory elector, I was entitled to vote on only eight questions (in 1984, 1988 and 1999) all of which I rejected – as did the Australian people. So, I think the Australian people were quite right to favour five questions and reject 21. If the Voice referendum goes down, it will be the first time I will have cast an affirmative vote for a defeated proposal.
I do NOT assert that the Australian people have never made a mistake at referendum time. A clear-cut case of a mistake was made by the Australian people in 1937 when the Commonwealth Parliament asked the people to add “aviation” to the section 51 list of Commonwealth powers. (The longer version of “aviation” was “air navigation and aircraft”). What could be more sensible than that? – but it went down in four states while getting a substantial overall majority of the national vote. The effect of such a stupid public rejection was that High Court judges, in effect, said to themselves: “If the Australian people must refuse sensible requests by the federal parliament for powers, we will give those powers by judicial review”. That has had the long-term effect of wrecking section 51 of the Constitution and, of course, aviation is a Commonwealth power.
So, a NO vote does not necessarily protect the Constitution. It can have the reverse effect, and I believe we are looking at the possibility of a case like that this year. If the Australian people reject the Voice that will be read by historians as the majority of Australians insulting the Aboriginal people. I know Warren Mundine and Jacinta Price will squeal at me for writing those words, but that is what I think. More on them below.
The way I think of this is to compare Australia and New Zealand. As long ago as 1867 New Zealand granted a special place to its First Nations people. It took the form of separate electorates for Maori. Due to Australia’s constitutional provisions that will never happen in Australia. The Australian equivalent is the Voice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. So, what is the historical comparison? New Zealand gave that special place in 1867 but Australia rejected the same idea in 2023? Why? – because the majority of New Zealand citizens think of their Maori as superior people, but the majority of Australians decided that their Aborigines are inferior people.
I have read all the articles on this subject appearing in all the papers. In the case of The Australian I have disliked all the negative ones – with one exception. Henry Ergas has a way of expressing well opinions with which I disagree – but let me note the opening words of his article last Friday. He wrote: “We are not responsible for the Australia of the past; we are responsible for that of the future.” In my opinion the first ten words constitute the nub of the problem. The idea should be put down.
There is a famous aphorism appearing in a famous book by a famous author – and some reader may help me to identify its name and place. It goes: “The past is another country. They do things differently there.” In my opinion the past is not a foreign country because we non-Aboriginal Australians are the beneficiaries of the past while Aboriginal Australians are the weak who suffer from the Australia of the past.
Recently there was formed a NO committee with a campaign titled “Recognise a Better Way”. The proposals put forward are ridiculous – especially the first one for a preamble. The idea is to treat the Constitution as though it were a history of the country. But the constitution of a country is not that. It sets up a system of government for the country. That is why the present proposed Voice should be accepted and the concept “recognise a better way” is absurd. These people don’t want to recognise a better way. They want to deny the Aboriginal people their wish of long standing for constitutional recognition.
The way things are going Aboriginal politicians and would be politicians of hard left and hard right will gang up together to defeat a sensible proposal. In my Switzer articles I have already dealt with one of them. See “Lidia Thorpe’s latest example of Senate’s unrepresentative swill” posted on 27 October last year. I leave my opinion of the other two to a later contribution.